Anna Bligh's broken promises took her beyond the point of no return

There's being gracious in defeat, and there's giving up before the race has even begun. Anna Bligh chose the latter.

And come Saturday, her party's in for a massacre at the Queensland election. Despite pleas from the top that voters show mercy – including this week's advertisements urging Queenslader to not give the LNP and Campbell Newman "too much power" – the latest polling suggests Labor could struggle to take even a dozen seats.

This race was done for Bligh a long time ago. Not because she didn't have the energy, but because she went beyond the point of no return with a series of significant policy announcements in recent years, many of which were not taken to the 2009 election campaign.

It hasn't all been bad for Bligh in the popularity stakes since making such decisions. As the waters rose in Brisbane in January 2011, so too did satisfaction from Queenslanders that Bligh was doing a good job managing the disaster. A January 2011 Fairfax poll online asking readers to rate Bligh's leadership during the flood crisis saw an overwhelming 83% of the 43184 respondents declare she was 'outstanding'.

A Newspoll following the disaster saw the ALP lead on the two party preferred vote 52% to 48%, up from 41 to 59 during the earlier corresponding period.

Bligh's resilience and sincerity in the face of adversary took her from zero to hero.

But heroes are fickle creatures, they're quickly forgotten.

Broken promises and surprise policy moves are not.

No amount of crisis leadership skills could negate the fact that Bligh had messed with the price of petrol. She abolished Queensland's 8.4 cent per litre fuel rebate in June 2009, despite having promised to retain it in the final weeks of her March 2009 election campaign.

And few could forgive Bligh's deeply unpopular plan to sell off (or even lease) five government-owned assets over a three to five year period, including the Port of Brisbane Authority, Queensland Motorways Forestry Plantations, the Abbot Point Coal Terminal and some of Queensland Rail's rail lines.

Expected to raise $15 billion to help plug the state's debt burden, the unions called it a fire sale and Bligh faced opposition from even within her own ranks.

"That's the tough decision I've made and I'm going to have to stick to," she said at the time.

And she had enough power to make it, despite never announcing it as policy during her election campaign.

There are many factors to blame for the problems that have plagued Queensland since Bligh's win from behind in 2009: the lingering effects of the GFC, a series of natural disasters across the state and the Beattie government legacy among them.

But Bligh will be remembered for going too far beyond her elected mandate. And she'll be judged accordingly for doing so on Saturday.